GEOS-5 Nature Run Collection

  • Released Thursday, March 7th, 2013
  • Updated Tuesday, November 14th, 2023 at 12:22AM
  • ID: 30017

Through numerical experiments that simulate the dynamical and physical processes governing weather and climate variability of Earth's atmosphere, models create a dynamic portrait of our planet. This 10-kilometer global mesoscale simulation (Nature Run) using the NASA Goddard Earth Observing System Model (GEOS-5) explores the evolution of surface temperatures as the sun heats the Earth and fuels cloud formation in the tropics and along baroclinic zones; the presence of water vapor and precipitation within these global weather patterns; the dispersion of global aerosols from dust, biomass burning, fossil fuel emissions, and volcanoes; and the winds that transport these aerosols from the surface to upper-levels.

The full GEOS-5 simulation covered 2 years—from May 2005 to May 2007. It ran on 3,750 processors of the Discover supercomputer at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation, consuming 3 million processor hours and producing over 400 terabytes of data.

GEOS-5 development is funded by NASA's Modeling, Analysis, and Prediction Program.

Dust (red), sea salt (blue), organic/black carbon (green), and sulfates (white) displayed by their extinction aerosol optical thickness.This simulation used GEOS-5 and the Goddard Chemistry Aerosol Radiation and Transport (GOCART) Model.

This projection of the aerosols simulation onto a rotating globe tracks wildfires and human-initiated burning (red-yellow dots) as detected by NASA's MODIS instrument aboard the Terra and Aqua satellites.

A zoomed in version of aerosols and fires on a rotating globe.

Total precipitable water (white) and rainfall (colors 0-15 millimeters/hour; red=highest).

Surface winds (white 0-40 meters/second) and upper-level (250 hPa) winds (colors 0-175 meters/second; red=faster).

Surface temperature (colors 270-310 Kelvin) and outgoing longwave radiation at the top of the atmosphere (white) representative of clouds in the model.

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Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Model data processing provided by Discover supercomputer, NASA Center for Climate Simulation

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